LOGINKenna’s POVWord of the sick pup had already spread through every corner of the estate before I’d even finished dressing. I could feel it the moment I stepped into the hall, servants moving faster than usual, voices dropping the second I passed, even the guards at their posts looking distracted enough to miss a greeting they’d never once forgotten before.“I’d like to help with the relief supplies,” I told Elaine when I found her in the sitting room, already surrounded by lists and baskets waiting to be filled.She gave a short nod, barely glancing up. “Fine. Jenna will lead the team.”I said nothing. I simply joined the servants loading the wagons, tying down baskets of herbs and blankets while Jenna climbed into the lead cart, already composed, already ready to be exactly what the village needed her to be.The village felt different the moment we arrived. Mothers kept their children close against their skirts. Every conversation I passed circled back to the same fear, spoken in diff
Jace’s POVI didn’t speak the entire ride back. There wasn’t much I trusted myself to say, not with the image of Kenna alone in that mist still sitting behind my eyes, not with the guards flanking us the whole way like she was something dangerous instead of something I was terrified of losing.The gates gave me no chance to finish whatever I might have said to her anyway.“Alpha.” A guard met us before we’d fully dismounted. “The council’s been waiting since dawn. It’s urgent.”I left her there without another word, which I regretted the moment I crossed into the meeting hall and felt the weight of the room settle on me instead.“More fields, Alpha,” Elder Corwin said before I’d even taken my seat. “Two additional farms overnight. And now the northern villages are asking whether this will spread to their land as well.”“It’s a natural blight,” another elder argued. “Nothing more.”“Natural blights don’t burn silver symbols into the soil,” a third snapped back. “This is the Goddess’s w
Kenna’s POVThe mist swallowed the path almost as soon as I left the estate walls, thick enough that I had to trust my feet more than my eyes. I kept my hood low and my steps quiet, the note’s ashes still fresh in my memory even though I’d burned the paper hours ago.This could be a trap, I told myself with every step. This could be exactly what it looks like.I kept walking anyway. I’d spent twenty-three years collecting nothing but scraps about my mother, a locked chest, a forbidden name, silence dressed up as kindness. I wasn’t about to turn back now, not when I’d finally gotten this close.Nearly an hour passed before the chapel came into view through the trees, half-collapsed and covered in vines, its broken windows letting pale morning light spill weakly across the floor inside. I stepped through the doorway and called out, soft enough not to carry far.“Hello?”Nothing answered but my own voice, echoing faintly off stone.I moved carefully through the ruined nave, noticing thin
Kenna’s POVI felt it before anyone said a word to me. That was always how it worked in this house, the silence arrived first, and the cruelty came dressed up in politeness right behind it.The maid who usually greeted me by name that morning simply bowed and hurried past, eyes fixed on the floor. Two servants folding linens near the stairwell stopped talking the instant I rounded the corner, their conversation swallowed so fast it left an echo behind it.By midday the whispers had stopped bothering to hide at all.“and I’m telling you, it started the moment she took the crown,” a young maid was saying near the courtyard fountain, her voice pitched low but not low enough.“Hush,” another hissed, glancing my direction as I passed. “She’ll hear you.”I kept walking, chin level, refusing to let either of them see what those words cost me. I’d had a lifetime of practice not flinching in front of people who wanted to watch me flinch.I spent the rest of the morning in the kitchens instead
Jace’s POVI was on my knees beside the ruined basket before I fully decided to move, grain sifting black through my fingers like it had never been anything but ash.“That’s not rot,” someone murmured behind me. “Rot takes days and weeks.”“I’ve farmed this land for thirty years,” an elder said, voice tight. “I’ve never seen a healthy harvest die in seconds.”“Inspect the eastern fields immediately,” another pressed. “Before this spreads to..”“Enough.” I stood, brushing the dust from my hands, and let my voice carry the way it needed to across a room already teetering toward panic. “No one assumes anything is supernatural until we know what we’re dealing with. Clear this basket. The banquet continues.”Most obeyed. The music resumed, the guests returned to their conversations, but the warmth had already drained out of the room, replaced by something brittle underneath every smile. I caught Jenna watching me from across the hall, her brow creased with what looked like genuine concer
Kenna’s POVI spun around so fast the candle nearly slipped from my hand.Jenna stood in the doorway, her expression soft, apologetic. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”My heart hadn’t slowed down yet. Behind me, the stone compartment sat open, the wooden box still visible inside it, and every instinct I had screamed to shut it before she noticed. I turned back just enough to press my palm flat against the stone, and it slid closed with a quiet click, smooth as if it had never opened at all.“Jenna.” I kept my voice even though my pulse was still racing. “What are you doing here?”“I noticed you leave dinner early.” She stepped further into the gallery, gaze already drifting toward the shrouded furniture, the dust, the forgotten paintings leaning against the walls. “I remembered you used to hide in this wing whenever things got too loud for you, back when we were children. I thought I might find you here.”I hadn’t realized she’d known that about me. It unsettled me more than it shoul







